Sporting Kansas City has officially ended their losing streak, and not in the manner anyone would have expected both in how the game unfolded, nor the final score line. The first Orange Ball game in Children’s Mercy Park history led to a wild comeback in the 2nd half, with Sporting scoring 3 goals in a 12 minute span before eventually coming away with a 3-3 draw against Minnesota United.  Now, a draw does mean that the team still has not won a game since the middle of September last year, but we are going to try to stay on a positive note for as long as we can this week, given the limited opportunity to such positive vibes so far this season.

Something that appeared to spark the comeback was a welcome sight: Substitutions.  Peter Vermes was candidly fairly proactive in making changes, both at halftime and early in the 2nd half in an attempt to change the game, and it worked.  Daniel Salloi, Tim Leibold, and Memo Rodriguez made significant impacts to how the left side of Sporting’s offense functioned in the last half hour of the game, and noticeably helped get the game back on level terms.

Tactical corner this week will take a further look at coaching ideologies, how they can differ while still creating success, and what adaptations coaches like Peter Vermes who firmly believe in structure have to make in order to maintain success in the current game.  We’ve spent a lot of time on the podcast the past several months talking about how an overemphasis control and structure could potentially be a bugaboo for the long term prospects of the club, and we will expound on that conversation further as well as suggest things we are seeing positional play coaches implement in their systems as well as the subtle shifts Vermes appears to have employed as well.

Finally we will take a quick look at how the USMNT is doing vs. Panama(the game is being played as we are recording this), check in on the Current as they started off their 2025 season with a bang, and do a quick preview of this weekend’s upcoming matchup vs. LAFC.